Foreigners. who often did not speak a word of English upon entering our country, had heard through conversations in their home country that in America:
“The streets were paved in gold”.
This utopian, economic fantasy-land was open to any hard-working immigrant man, woman or child with enough gumption to persevere through industrial storms and foul weather with dogged determination to survive in spite of it all.
This was no land for the weak and the sickly! Come hell or high water, immigrant families were expected to make do and find a new meaning in life.
Actually, according to the Cambridge dictionary, immigrant families soon discovered that the streets of New York were not paved with gold whereas, in contrast, some of the streets, especially in Centralville, were not paved at all but were only muddy pathways with no sidewalks for pedestrians. Even Montreal had paved streets and sidewalks.
Fanciful immigrant imaginings from the old country radically needed reappraisal when day-to-day reality imposed its ugly truth. This social discovery may have been the initial lesson, a wake-up-call, in the immigrant’s harsh set of adaptations or learning experiences.
The following excerpts from the Lowell Sun newspaper illustrate several urban renewal projects, which eventually changed the city’s landscape into less primitive urban pathways where a motor vehicle might dare trespass.
End for now – More is coming, soon.